The journey to Panama, by Jodi

 We set out on our first visa run, early Thursday morning. We’ve only been here 2 months, but found ourselves between homes for a few nights, so we decided to take a trip to Panama. So, at 2:30 a.m., we loaded all our sleeping kids into the car and tried to set off for the other side of Costa Rica and miss all the crazy holiday traffic we’d heard about. Unfortunately, our car didn’t agree and decided not to start…again. So, I got behind the car and pushed and Kevin pushed on the side and then jumped in to pop the clutch once we got going fast enough and we were on our way.

This is the view of the sun coming up through our dirty windshield. Only one side of the windshield wiper spray stuff works.

The kids all slept until we were almost to San Jose, which was awesome. We stopped for breakfast at about 6 a.m. and then continued onto Limon, which is on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. It’s the only substantial city on the coast on that side of the country and had been a draw when we were deciding where to live since it’s on the Caribbean. But, we heard they have problems with crime there and after passing through, I’m really glad we didn’t end up there. It was just a dingy, run down port town. 

Oh, and our A/C stopped working on the way. Love our Galloper.

 This was after breakfast at some random park in San Jose. Kevin decided to get some of Jack's energy out before we got back in the car and Tessa went with them.

 The drive to Puerto Viejo was gorgeous. The roads wound through the mountains with a wall of jungle on one side and this panoramic valley of jungle and mountains on the other. It was amazing, except for the giant bus that tried to run me off the road.

 Kevin's new favorite tree.

 That's our first view of the Caribbean. Open windows since the stupid A/C broke. My back was stuck to the chair with sweat when we got out.

 These were the enormous banana plantations that cover tons of the land on the east side of Costa Rica. They cover the banana bunches with these blue plastic bags to keep the bugs away and because Americans don't like the little black spots they get without the bags. Apparently, when they harvest them, they pick out all the very best bananas to go to the U.S. So, the one's you can buy here are the 2nd class bananas, even though they grow everywhere.

We headed south from there to Puerto Viejo (total driving time: 7 hours), where we spent the night at this really fun resort Kevin booked. The kids got to swim all afternoon and we got to have our lunch and dinner brought to us at the pool. We didn’t even make it the beach, which was directly across the street from our room, because we were all so exhausted.

 There's the beach we never went to.

 

This morning, we got up early, packed back up, and headed out on another long journey to get to our house in Bocas del Toro. It started with a taxi ride from the hotel to the border town of Sixaola. We didn’t take our car because apparently you need lots of paperwork to take it across the border and we didn’t want to mess with that.

 

 This little bugger kept me from being able to get into my trunk before we left, because he'd built his web from the spare tire on the back to the trunk latch and I didn't want to stick my hand through it.

At the border, we stood in 3 different lines, one on the Costa Rica side and 2 on the Panama side to get our passports stamped and our customs paperwork processed, totaling about an hour in hot, slow lines, which was actually really good time, especially for high season.  We also had to walk across a super sketchy bridge that was built across the river that separates the two countries. The slats of wood were by no means flush and very weathered and wobbly and it was a long drop to the river below. Luckily, they’d done a little bit of work on it and slapped some newer slats of wood running perpendicular to the old slats. So, we tried to keep our balance walking on those as our poor girls got more and more nervous. Jack didn’t seem to notice the danger.

 The scary bridge. It doesn't look nearly as sketchy in this picture as it was.

 Back in another taxi

Once we made it through all those lines, we waited for our next taxi bus to take us to the town of Almirante in Panama, about an hour from the border. From there, we got on a water taxi to take us out to Isla Colon, the island we’re staying on in the archipelago. Each car taxi ride took about an hour and the water taxi ride was about 30 minutes. 

The beginning of the water taxi ride was pretty interesting. Tessa was extremely nervous about getting on the boat and even told us she’d rather die than get on a boat. We finally managed to talk her into it. As we’re starting out, Kevin points out a couple of out houses along the side positioned over the water. Gross. There were a bunch of shacks on the water and we saw a little girl about Jack’s age rowing herself from one side to the other in a little canoe.

The weird thing was, almost all of them had several nice cars parked next to them. Not sure about that one.  In Costa Rica, only the very wealthiest own a car, let alone more than one. And they’re not nice cars. But each house I saw here had at least 3 cars and all of them looked pretty new.

 Tessa, not very happy about the water taxi.

 The shacks on the water in Almirante.

 Almost as good as being on the boat at Lake Powell. Ha!

Anyhow, so we made it to Bocas town and had about 45 minutes before we were meeting the lady who owns our house to have her taxi us to the house, that is only accessible by water taxi. We grabbed some lunch and walked around a little, but the town was way too touristy for our taste and not very clean. We found a muddy park for the kids to play in while we waited for our lunch and then for the house owner. Once we found her, she tried to call a taxi to drive us to the water taxi. After waiting about 20 minutes on the curb with all our stuff and the groceries we’d bought to take to the house, I decided maybe we could walk. She though it was only 6 or 7 blocks, so I figured we could manage.  But 30 minutes later with super sore backs and arms and kids that were beet red from the heat, we finally made it to the water taxi. It had to have been a good mile to mile and a half away. Poor kids.

 

 Tessa, deciding water taxis are better than walking a mile in the heat, carrying all our stuff...not that she carried anything. Stinker.

 Bocas town

 The wierd park we waited at for our 100th taxi.

 The taxi ride to our house. 

 Finally!

This taxi ride was only about 10 minutes and so exciting to see our amazing house as we got closer.  As the owner gave us the rundown on everything, the kids immediately threw their swimsuits and snorkel gear on and were out in the water. We spent the rest of the day snorkeling and lounging on the deck. And at night, the owners brought us 3 fish they’d just caught, all seasoned and ready to go in the oven. And a couple of hours later, they showed up to tell us that the bioluminescent fish they’d told us about were out tonight (the owners live in the house next to our’s.) We had to walk down the dock really quietly without any lights, but then when we got close, they told the kids to stomp on the dock and as soon as they did, all these blue lights would light up in the water, like fireflies. It was amazing.

And the stars here are unbelievable.

 The coral reef behind the house.

Now I’m laying in bed with our windows open, listening to fish jumping out of the water as I write this novel.